The Chemical Senses—Taste and

Smell
By Dr Shagufta Khaliq
SENSE OF TASTE (Gustation)
• Taste is mainly a function of the taste buds in the mouth.

Primary sensations of taste

• Tastes are mixtures of five elementary taste qualities:
• salty, sweet, sour, bitter, and umami (savory, including monosodium glutamate)
• Sour Taste:
• The sour taste is caused by acids—that is, by the hydrogen ion concentration.

• Salty Taste:
• The salty taste is elicited by ionized salts, mainly by the sodium ion concentration.

• Sweet Taste:
• The sweet taste is not caused by any single class of chemicals.
• Some of the types of chemicals that cause this taste include
sugars, glycols, alcohols, aldehydes, ketones, amides, esters, some amino acids, some small
proteins, sulfonic acids, halogenated acids, and inorganic salts of lead and beryllium(organic
chemicals)
• Bitter Taste:
• the substances that give the bitter taste are almost entirely organic substances.
• to cause bitter taste sensations:
• (1) long-chain organic substances that contain nitrogen
• (2) alkaloids.
• The alkaloids include many of the drugs used in medicines, such as quinine, caffeine,
strychnine, and nicotine.

• Umami Taste:
• Umami, a Japanese word meaning “delicious,”.
• Umami is the dominant taste of food containing L-glutamate, such as meat extracts and
aging cheese.
The taste bud and its function
• Taste receptor cells are located within taste buds on the tongue, palate, pharynx,
and larynx.

• The taste buds on the tongue are found in taste papillae, which include as many
as several hundred taste buds.

• Taste buds on the tongue are organized in specialized papillae.

• Three types of papillae contain taste buds:

circumvallate, foliate, and fungiform.
• (1) a large number of taste buds are on the walls of the troughs that surround the
circumvallate papillae, which form a V line on the surface of the posterior tongue

• (2) moderate numbers of taste buds are on the fungiform papillae over the flat anterior
surface of the tongue

• (3) moderate numbers are on the foliate papillae located in the folds along the lateral
surfaces of the tongue.

The tip of the tongue is most responsive to sweet, salty, and umami, whereas the posterior
tongue is most responsive to bitter, and the sides of the tongue are most responsive to
sour.
• Taste bud,
• has a diameter of about 1/30 millimeter and a length of about 1/16 millimeter.

• The taste bud is composed of about 50 modified epithelial cells, some of which are supporting
cells called sustentacular cells and others of which are taste cells.

• The taste cells are continually being replaced by mitotic division of surrounding epithelial cells, so some taste cells are young cells.
Others are mature cells that lie toward the center of the bud; these cells soon break up and dissolve. The life span of each taste cell
is about 10 days in lower mammals but is unknown for humans.

• The outer tips of the taste cells are arranged around a minute taste pore.

• From the tip of each taste cell, several microvilli, or taste hairs, protrude outward into the taste
pore to approach the cavity of the mouth.

• These microvilli provide the receptor surface for taste.

• Interwoven around the bodies of the taste cells is a branching terminal network
of taste nerve fibers that are stimulated by the taste receptor cells.
Mechanism of Stimulation of Taste Buds

• Receptor Potential:
• The membrane of the taste cell is negatively charged on the inside with respect to
the outside.
• Application of a taste substance to the taste hairs causes partial loss of this negative
potential—that is, the taste cell becomes depolarized.

the decrease in potential is approximately proportional to the logarithm of

concentration of the stimulating substance.

• This change in electrical potential in the taste cell is called the receptor potential for
taste.
• The type of receptor protein in each taste villus determines the type of taste that will be
perceived.

 For sodium ions and hydrogen ions, which elicit salty and sour taste sensations,
respectively, the receptor proteins open specific ion channels in the apical membranes of
the taste cells, thereby activating the receptors.

 for the sweet and bitter taste sensations, the portions of the receptor protein molecules
that protrude through the apical membranes activate second-messenger transmitter
substances inside the taste cells, and these second messengers cause intracellular chemical
changes that elicit the taste signals.
Lower tip of the
postcentral gyrus in the
parietal cerebral
Cortex, where it curls deep
into the sylvian fissure, and
into the adjacent opercular
insular area.

3rd order
neurons 2nd order
neurons
Taste Reflexes Are Integrated in the Brain Stem

• From the tractus solitarius, many taste signals are transmitted within the brain
stem itself directly into the superior and inferior salivatory nuclei,
• and these areas transmit signals to the submandibular, sublingual, and parotid
glands to help control the secretion of saliva during the ingestion and digestion of
food.
Rapid Adaptation of Taste
• Taste sensations adapt rapidly, often almost completely within a minute or so of
continuous stimulation.
Threshold for Taste Sensations

• Sweet taste Sugar : 1 in 200 dilution

• Salt taste Sodium chloride : 1 in 400 dilution
• Sour taste Hydrochloric acid : 1 in 15,000 dilution
• Bitter taste Quinine : 1 in 2,000,000 dilution.

• Bitter taste has very low threshold and sweet taste has a high threshold.
• Threshold for umani is not known.
Disorders of sense of taste
• Disorders associated with the sense of taste are not life-threatening, but they can
impair the quality of life, impair nutritional status, and increase the possibility of
accidental poisoning.
• Taste disorders include
Ageusia (absence of taste),
Hypogeusia (decreased taste sensitivity),
Hypergeusia (increased taste sensitivity),
Dysgeusia (distortion of taste, including taste sensation in the absence of taste
stimuli).
SENSE OF SMELL (OLFACTION)
• Olfaction, the sense of smell, is one of the chemical senses.
• In humans, olfaction is not necessary for survival, yet it improves the quality of
life and even protects against hazards.
Olfactory membrane
• The olfactory membrane lies in the superior part of each nostril.
• Medially, the olfactory membrane folds downward along the surface of the
superior septum;
• laterally, it folds over the superior turbinate and even over a small portion of the
upper surface of the middle turbinate.
• In each nostril, the olfactory membrane has a surface area of about 2.4 square
centimeters.
 Olfactory cells are the receptor cells for smell sensation
• The olfactory cells are actually bipolar nerve cells derived originally from the central
nervous system.
• There are about 100 million of these cells in the olfactory epithelium interspersed among
sustentacular Cells.

• The mucosal end of the olfactory cell forms a knob from which 4 to 25 olfactory hairs (also
called olfactory cilia), measuring 0.3 micrometer in diameter and up to 200 micrometers in
length, project into the mucus that coats the inner surface of the nasal cavity.

• These projecting olfactory cilia form a dense mat in the mucus, and it is these cilia that react
to odors in the air and stimulate the olfactory cells.

• Spaced among the olfactory cells in the olfactory membrane are many small Bowman
glands that secrete mucus onto the surface of the olfactory membrane.
Stimulation of the olfactory cells
• Transduction in the olfactory system involves the conversion of a chemical signal
into an electrical signal that can be transmitted to the CNS.

• The steps in olfactory transduction are as follows:

• 1. Odorant molecules bind to specific olfactory receptor proteins located on the

cilia of olfactory receptor cells. There are at least 1000 different olfactory
receptor proteins (members of the superfamily of G protein–coupled receptors)
• 2. The olfactory receptor proteins are coupled to adenylyl cyclase via a G protein called Golf.
When the odorant is bound, Golf is activated, which activates adenylyl cyclase.

• 3. Adenylyl cyclase catalyzes the conversion of ATP to cAMP. Intracellular levels of cAMP
increase, which opens cation channels in the cell membrane of the olfactory receptor that
are permeable to Na+, K+, and Ca2+.

• 4. The receptor cell membrane depolarizes.This depolarizing receptor potential brings the
membrane potential closer to threshold and depolarizes the initial segment of the olfactory
nerve axon.

• 5. Action potentials are then generated and propagated along the olfactory nerve axons
toward the olfactory bulb.
• A minute concentration of a specific odorant initiates a cascading effect that opens
extremely large numbers of sodium channels.
• This process accounts for the exquisite sensitivity of the olfactory neurons to even the
slightest amount of odorant.

Physical factors that affect the degree of stimulation of olfactory cells.

• First, only volatile substances that can be sniffed into the nostrils can be smelled.

• Second, the stimulating substance must be at least slightly water soluble so that it can pass
through the mucus to reach the olfactory cilia.

• Third, it is helpful for the substance to be at least slightly lipid soluble, presumably because
lipid constituents of the cilium are a weak barrier to non–lipid-soluble odorants.
Rapid Adaptation of Olfactory Sensations

• The olfactory receptors adapt about 50 percent in the first second or so after
stimulation.
Primary Sensations of Smell
• 1. Camphoraceous
• 2. Musky
• 3. Floral
• 4. Pepperminty
• 5. Ethereal
• 6. Pungent
• 7. Putrid
Transmission of smell signals into the central nervous system
• The olfactory nerve fibers leading backward from the olfactory bulb are called cranial
nerve I, or the olfactory tract.

• both the tract and the bulb are an anterior outgrowth of brain tissue from the base of the
brain

• the olfactory bulb, lies over the cribriform plate, separating the brain cavity from the upper
reaches of the nasal cavity.

• The cribriform plate has multiple small perforations through which an equal number of
small nerves pass upward from the olfactory membrane in the nasal cavity to enter the
olfactory bulb in the cranial cavity.
• Short axons from the olfactory cells terminating in multiple globular structures within the
olfactory bulb called glomeruli.

• Each bulb has several thousand such glomeruli, each of which is the terminus for about
25,000 axons from olfactory cells.

• Each glomerulus also is the terminus for dendrites from about 25 large mitral cells and
about 60 smaller tufted cells, the cell bodies of which lie in the olfactory bulb superior to
the glomeruli.

• These dendrites receive synapses from the olfactory cell neurons, and the mitral and tufted
cells send axons through the olfactory tract to transmit olfactory signals to higher levels in
the central nervous system.
• The olfactory tract enters the brain at the anterior junction between the mesencephalon
and cerebrum; there, the tract divides into two pathways

• one passing medially into the medial olfactory area of the brain stem,

• and the other passing laterally into the lateral olfactory area.
The Primitive Olfactory System—The Medial Olfactory Area.

• The medial olfactory area consists of a group of nuclei located in the midbasal
portions of the brain immediately anterior to the hypothalamus.

• Most conspicuous are the septal nuclei, which are midline nuclei that feed into
the hypothalamus and other primitive portions of the brain’s limbic system.

 This is the brain area most concerned with basic behavior.

Basic responses to olfaction, such as licking the lips, salivation, and other feeding
responses caused by the smell of food or by basic emotional drives associated
with smell.
The Less Old Olfactory System—The Lateral Olfactory Area.

• The lateral olfactory area is composed mainly of the prepyriform and pyriform
cortex plus the cortical portion of the amygdaloid nuclei.

• From these areas, signal pathways pass into almost all portions of the limbic
system, especially into less primitive portions such as the hippocampus, which
seem to be most important for learning to like or dislike certain foods depending
on one’s experiences with them.

lateral olfactory area and its many connections with the limbic behavioral system
cause a person to develop an absolute aversion to foods that have caused nausea
and vomiting.
• An important feature of the lateral olfactory area is that many signal pathways
from this area also feed directly into an older part of the cerebral cortex called
the paleocortex in the anteromedial portion of the temporal lobe.

This area is the only area of the entire cerebral cortex where sensory signals pass
directly to the cortex without passing first through the thalamus. (MCQ,viva)

• A newer olfactory pathway that passes through the thalamus, passing to the
dorsomedial thalamic nucleus and then to the lateroposterior quadrant of the
orbitofrontale cortex, has been found.

• On the basis of studies in monkeys, this newer system probably helps in the
conscious analysis of odor.
Summary
• Primitive olfactory system that subserves the basic olfactory reflexes

• A less old system that provides automatic but partially learned control of food
intake and aversion to toxic and unhealthy foods

• A newer system that is comparable to most of the other cortical sensory systems
and is used for conscious perception and analysis of olfaction.
Abnormalities of olfaction
• Anosmia is the absence of the sense of smell,
• Hyposmia is impaired sense of smell,
• Dysosmia is a distorted sense of smell.
• Head injury, upper respiratory infections, tumors of the anterior fossa, and
exposure to toxic chemicals (which destroy the olfactory epithelium) all can cause
olfactory impairment.